Mr Hurst was targeted for information as he had "run" a number of IRA informers.

He had used the pseudonym Martin Ingram to co-write a book about Freddie Scappaticci, or 'Stakeknife', who was deputy head of the Provisional IRA's so-called 'nutting squad'.

The programme alleged Mr Rees subcontracted the work to another investigator who used spy software to retrieve emails.

Details of emails from Mr Hurst's computer were subsequently forwarded by fax to the News of the World's Dublin office on July 5, 2006, with Alex Marunchak being the intended recipient.

Mr Hurst said:

"The BBC has shown me documents which contained parts of emails between me and a number of other people. This person was paid by News International to hack into my computer and it is clear that British security have been aware for a number of years that I was being hacked for a sustained period."

Mr Hurst said he wouldn't rest until a criminal investigation was launched and also said he would be vigorously pursuing a case against News Corp-owned News International - the publishers of the now defunct tabloid.

Let us first dispense with that fig leaf: James Murdoch does not have a role at News Corp. He is the shadow man. Nobody talks to him – not even, at least not meaningfully, his father. (They once spoke two or three times a day, managing the affairs of their world.) His siblings shun or pity him. He has not existed as a force, and hardly as presence, since the meltdown of the News of the World last summer.

And, to say the least, there is no possibility that he will inherit the top job.

The reality is stark: everybody in the company blames James for the terrible things that have happened in London. They blame his father for falling under James's sway – but blame James more for swaying him.

In a way, it's even starker than that: since he left the top job at BSkyB at his father's behest and took over News Corp's operations in Europe and Asia, James has become the most disliked man in the company. This is partly because, for all the obvious reasons, Murdoch's entitled children would breed a predictable resentment. But additionally, it is because James is an extraordinarily cold, abrasive know-it-all.

"Who would have thought anybody could make Lachlan look good," said one of Murdoch's close executives, referring to the contrast between James and his brother Lachlan, who once was the heir apparent – and, in his moment, another headquarters albatross. But starker still, within News Corp, there is a structural analysis of why everything in London went so wrong – with James as the faulty linchpin.

In his father's determination to elevate James, James Murdoch found himself with vastly more power than he should have had. He used it, as power-mad people are wont to do, to grab more power. He did this by pressuring his father to push out all the key executives – chief operating officer Peter Chernin, general counsel Lon Jacobs, communications chief and Rupert-right hand Gary Ginsberg – who, for so long, had so adroitly steered Rupert and the company. And they had had a tight hold on his ear – for Murdoch often tends to listen most to the last person he has spoken to.

Thus, in the end, with everybody else gone, James was calling most of the shots. His was the strategic mind dealing with the meltdown in London. Or worse: his was the strategic mind that allowed Rebekah Brooks, the former Sun editor who became the CEO of News International, to be the strategic mind.

And then, the Taylor payment: one News Corp view is that he authorised the vast settlement payment to Gordon Taylor, chief executive of the Professional Footballers Association, whose voicemail the News of the World had hacked – not so much because he was afraid of what Taylor might say, but because he thought this might provide an excuse for American executives to take a greater oversight role of what was now his domain.

James Murdoch was not trying to cover up the company's crimes – and it never quite made sense why he would. Rather, he was playing internal politics.

Hence the smoking gun: his legal approach during his testimony before British Parliament this summer was the tried-and-true theory of "plausible deniability". If he carefully couched his testimony, then, ultimately, there would just no way of truly knowing what he knew.

Except there was. In essence, the bureaucracy, in the form of Tom Crone, the company lawyer, and Colin Myler, the News of the World editor, whom James had implicitly blamed, rebelled – saying they had told him all. And they had an email to prove it. James's only defence was that he had not read it all. Plausible deniability gone.

He should, of course, step down and out. Not be a distraction, until name is cleared, etc. He continues as an executive now because his father has great difficulties saying the obvious. And because James himself has determined that his personal interests are best served by staying on the inside and being able to pick up what scuttlebutt he can.

The story, however, is not completely over. He will not be the chief executive of News Corp, or much of anything else, but even from jail, if that is where he finds himself, he will be one of four siblings who each control 25% of their birthright company.

Tom Watson will in a few moments use parliamentary privilege to publicly expose details of a notorious murder inquiry allegedly blocked by News International. An adjournment debate on the unsolved axe murder of private investigator Daniel Morgan is scheduled for 4pm.

The new revelations will come after former Met officer Jacqui Hames claimed that senior Murdoch staff had “close links” with the private investigation firm whose members were accused of the murder.

“I believe that the real reason for the News of the World placing us under surveillance was that suspects in the Daniel Morgan murder inquiry were using their association with [News International] to try to … subvert the investigation.”

Rebekah Brooks claimed that the paper was investigating an alleged affair between Hames and Detective Chief Superintendent Dave Cook – but they had already been married for four years. Hames dismissed the explanation as “absolutely pathetic”.

News Corporation today announced that, following his relocation to the Company’s headquarters in New York, James Murdoch, Deputy Chief Operating Officer, has relinquished his position as Executive Chairman of News International, its UK publishing unit. Tom Mockridge, Chief Executive Officer of News International, will continue in his post and will report to News Corporation President and COO Chase Carey.

“We are all grateful for James' leadership at News International and across Europe and Asia, where he has made lasting contributions to the group's strategy in paid digital content and its efforts to improve and enhance governance programs,” said Rupert Murdoch, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, News Corporation. “He has demonstrated leadership and continues to create great value at Star TV, Sky Deutschland, Sky Italia, and BSkyB. Now that he has moved to New York, James will continue to assume a variety of essential corporate leadership mandates, with particular focus on important pay-TV businesses and broader international operations.”

“I deeply appreciate the dedication of my many talented colleagues at News International who work tirelessly to inform the public and am confident about the tremendous momentum we have achieved under the leadership of my father and Tom Mockridge,” said James Murdoch. "With the successful launch of The Sun on Sunday and new business practices in place across all titles, News International is now in a strong position to build on its successes in the future. As Deputy Chief Operating Officer, I look forward to expanding my commitment to News Corporation’s international television businesses and other key initiatives across the Company.”

The family of a private investigator brutally axed to death are furious a report on the reasons for his collapsed murder trial is yet to be published.

The murder of Daniel Morgan in 1987, who ran his company Southern Investigations with partner Jonathan Rees in Thornton Heath, has seen five failed murder investigations, with the last, in March 2011, leading to admissions of police corruption by Scotland Yard.

His brother Alastair Morgan, angry at the police failures, has demanded a judicial inquiry but has been told it cannot be considered until a report by the Metropolitan Police on the reasons behind the collapse has been completed.

Due at the end of January, this report has yet to be published. Mr Morgan, 63, said: “We have completely lost faith in the police. We want a judicial inquiry so we can be shown all the material and see for ourselves what they know about Daniel’s murder.

The delay is typical, you get the feeling the whole thing is a deliberate attempt to prolong things but we will keep up the pressure until we know the truth.”

A meeting with Home Secretary Theresa May in December saw her state no decision on an inquiry would be made until the report was produced.

Mr Morgan said: “When they announced the report at first I didn’t care – I know why the trial collapsed, police cock-ups in disclosure, mishandling of evidence and the use of super-grasses.

Since it has become an obstacle to the judicial inquiry it has assumed a much greater importance.”

The reasons behind Daniel’s murder have never been discovered, but his brother believes he had stumbled across information over police corruption in the days before his death.

He said: “The Thursday before he was killed he said to a neighbour ‘You wouldn’t believe what I have found out – all police are bastards’.”

He met Mr Rees, who has gone on to be linked to phone hacking while working at the News of the World, at the Golden Lion pub in Sydenham, and hours later was found dead.

A spokesman for the police said: “We accept there are lessons to be learned arising from the discontinuance of the latest trial.

“To this end, and together with the CPS, we are engaged in a joint review to ensure relevant issues, particularly in relation to disclosure and the handling of witnesses, are understood and addressed.

“This review is ongoing and, on completion, the findings will be shared with the family of Daniel Morgan.

Leading Labour MP Tom Watson is due to launch a scathing attack on the Metropolitan police handling of the case at the House of Commons today.

Mr Watson is expected to link corruption within the force to individuals suspected of phone hacking

Undercover police officers who stole into the premises of Southern Investigations Ltd armed with state-of-the-art bugging devices were under no illusions about the need to ensure that no trace should be left of their visit to the drab private investigator’s office on a south London high street.

The team from Scotland Yard’s anti-corruption unit were conducting Operation Nigeria, an inquiry begun early in 1999 into the activities of Jonathan Rees, the portly owner of the detective agency who was a suspect in the murder 12 years earlier of his business partner, Daniel Morgan.

The second aim of the investigation was to gather information on Rees and his network of contacts, including bent serving police officers, dedicated to obtaining information, often illegally gathered, for sale to a number of keen and often insatiable customers: newspapers.An internal police report made clear the calibre of Rees and his accomplices: “They are alert, cunning and devious individuals who have current knowledge of investigative methods and techniques which may be used against them. Such is their level of access to individuals within the police… that the threat of compromise to any conventional investigation against them is constant and very real.”
The bug planters nonetheless did their work well. Over the next seven months, detectives chronicled Rees’s dealings with a number of Fleet Street titles, including the News of the World, as he provided a steady stream of stories and tit-bits from his contacts.

It was a lucrative trade. Rees was recorded complaining that he was owed £12,000 by one tabloid, but his company’s biggest customer was the NOTW, paying up to £150,000 a year. As the private investigator put it: “No one pays like the News of the World do.”

Using his roll-call of informants, including bank employees and even a VAT inspector susceptible to bribes, Rees offered his clients the inside track on the arrest of the M25 murderer Kenneth Noye and the sex lives of Buckingham Palace servants.

By September 1999, Operation Nigeria had gathered little evidence on the death of Mr Morgan, but it had recorded Rees plotting to frame Kim James, a former model, by having cocaine planted in her car to allow her estranged husband to win custody of their child. Rees was convicted of the conspiracy at the Old Bailey and sentenced to six years’ imprisonment, increased to seven on appeal.

After he was released from jail in 2004, only News International continued to employ the disgraced investigator after he was rehired by the NOTW under the editorship of Andy Coulson, who resigned from that role in 2007 after taking responsibility for the phone hacking scandal. Coulson, who has always denied any knowledge of Mr Mulcaire’s activities, resigned as Mr Cameron’s director of communications in January over continuing disclosures which destroyed the NOTW’s insistence hacking had been restricted to a single “rogue” reporter.

The dossier of evidence compiled about Mr Rees suggests that illicit newsgathering techniques were more serious and widespread even that suggested by the phone hacking affair, in which the NOTW eavesdropped on a swath of public figures including Princes William and Harry and Sienne Miller.

Rees’s alleged political activities encompassed a far wider range of politicians than Prime Minister, Home Secretary and Trade Secretary. Among the other targets were the former Conservative MP David Mellor, who as the former national heritage secretary threatened tighter regulation of the press and who was subsequently disgraced for his affair with an actress obtained with the help of covert recording equipment.
Gerald Kauffman, the Labour MP who chaired the Select Committee for Culture, Media and Sport – whose remit includes newspapers – between 1992 and 2005, may also have been targeted by Mr Rees along with Gaynor Regan, the mistress and later wife of Robin Cook, the senior Labour MP and Foreign Secretary.

Among police, his suspected targets included Sir John Stevens, now Baron Stevens of Kirkwhelpington, the career policeman who sought to root our corruption and incompetence at the Met when he ran the UK’s biggest police force between 2000 and 2005.

He also allegedly targeted Assistant Commissioner John Yates, the most senior counter-terrorism officer. Mr Yates was criticised by MPs for failing to re-open the investigation into phone hacking last year following the discovery of secret settlements between News International and the publicist Max Clifford and Gordon Taylor, chief executive of the Professional Footballers’ Association.

Another figure believe to have been targeted was Ian Hurst, an ex-British Army intelligence officer who had been running informers in an undercover unit in Northern Ireland. After he left the intelligence service, Mr Hurst was in close contact with Alfredo Scappaticci, or Stakeknife, an IRA informant whose cover was blown, forcing him to move between a series of safe houses.
At the Bank of England, the private investigator is suspected of conducting illict inquiries into members of the Monetary Policy Committee, which sets interest rates.

Southern Investigations are believed to have obtained financial details of the Queen’s cousin, the Duke of Kent and his wife the Duchess of Kent.

Bank account information was also allegedly sought on the seventh in line to the throne Prince Edward and his wife Sophie who were the subject of press speculation about their finances.
Information was sought on Kate Middleton, amid speculation that Prince William was about to announce their engagement.

Rees’s secret work for newspapers could only be reported following his trial for the murder of his former business partner, Daniel Morgan, which collapsed earlier this year following mistakes by Scotland Yard.

News International said: “It is well documented that Jonathan Rees and Southern Investigations worked for a whole variety of newspaper groups. With regards to Tom Watson’s specific allegations, we believe these are wholly inaccurate.

The Met Police, with whom we are co-operating fully in Operation Weeting, have not asked us for any information regarding Jonathan Rees.”

Jonathan Rees and the media

March 1987 Daniel Morgan, Rees’s business partner, is murdered in a south London pub car park. Detectives investigate claims that he was about to expose police corruption.
April 1999 Launch of Operation Nigeria, a new investigation into the murder and the sale of illegally-obtained information by Rees to newspapers.

September 2000 Rees is convicted, along with a detective, of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. No journalists are charged.

May 2004 Rees is released and re-employed by the NOTW under Andy Coulson.
January 2005 Glenn Mulcaire begins to hack the voicemails of celebrities on behalf of the NOTW.
August 2006 Mulcaire is arrested and convicted of illegally accessing phone messages.

April 2008 Rees is charged with the murder of Morgan, and three years later is acquitted.

Scotland Yard confirms it has several hundred thousand pages of evidence from its investigations.

Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator jailed for phone-hacking in 2007, provided the News of the World with "daily transcripts" of intercepted voicemail messages, it is alleged in court papers released today.

Glenn Mulcaire is alleged to have sent 'daily' transcripts of voicemail messages to the News of the WorldPhoto: EDDIE MULHOLLAND

He was paid hundreds of thousands of pounds as part of a "conspiracy with senior executives" at the News of the World, it is alleged.

Phone-hacking was approved by at least two executives, it is claimed, and three journalists acted as Mulcaire's main point of contact with the newspaper at different times.

The allegations are contained in documents submitted to the High Court in London that would have been used in a civil trial by victims of hacking who have now reached settlements with News Group Newspapers, the publisher of the now-defunct tabloid.

Today some of the passages of the documents which were previously censored have been made public following a further order from Mr Justice Vos.

They show that hacking victims wanted NGN to admit that all of the people named in Mulcaire's notebooks were either "victims of voicemail interception or other forms of illegal information gathering".

That would have meant admitting that almost 6,000 victims named in the notebooks were hacking victims, an admission that NGN refused to make. Scotland Yard has said there were 829 "likely" victims based on the evidence in the notebooks.

Mulcaire was jailed in 2007 together with Clive Goodman, the News of the World's then royal editor, after police found they had hacked phones belonging to members of the Royal household. A fresh investigation was launched last year after it became clear there were hundreds of other victims.

Documents submitted by lawyers for the claimants, who at the time included Sienna Miller, Kelly Hoppen and Tessa Jowell, allege that three senior journalists, named only as A,B and C, were conduits to Mulcaire with the power to sign contracts relating to his payments for voicemail interception.

A section which was previously redacted alleges that from 1998, when Mulcaire first started working with the News of the World, he "entered into a conspiracy with senior executives of [News Group Newspapers] including Clive Goodman and Journalists A,B,C,D and E whereby he would, on their behalf, obtain information about individuals of interest to [NGN] journalists and use electronic intelligence and eavesdropping in order to obtain this information.

"He also agreed to provide daily transcripts of voicemail messages to [NGN] journalists." Mulcaire, who objected to the court papers being made public, has not admitted any of the allegations contained in the documents submitted by the victims' lawyers.

News Group Newspapers has admitted that more than 60 people were victims of phone hacking, and has apologised and paid damages to them.

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers said 10 peers and 44 current and former MPs had been identified in material analysed to date by officers from Operation Weeting, Scotland Yard's inquiry into phone hacking.

The number could rise further as the investigation continues, she added. Of the 54 names, a total of 18 - four peers and 14 current and former MPs - had been identified as "likely victims of phone hacking".

All of them have been contacted by Scotland Yard. They will include MPs who have already received damages settlements from News Group Newspapers, the publisher of the News of the World, such as Lord Prescott, Chris Bryant and Simon Hughes.

Ms Akers disclosed the information in response to a request from the parliamentary culture, media and sport committee, which has been conducting its own inquiry into hacking and other illegal practices by the media.

The committee had originally asked for the names of all MPs and peers contained in Mulcaire's notebooks, but Ms Akers said the Metropolitan Police was "unable" to provide that information. ....read more

Leveson inquiry: NoW accused of colluding with murder suspectsFormer policewoman and Crimewatch presenter Jacqui Hames also claims Rebekah Brooks covered up why her family were targeted
Former Crimewatch presenter Jacqui Hames broke down in tears as she gave evidence to the Leveson inquiry. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
A former policewoman and Crimewatch presenter who was put under surveillance by the News of the World has accused the News International paper of "collusion" with suspects in a high-profile murder case at the Leveson inquiry.

Jacqui Hames, who broke down in tears as she gave evidence to the inquiry on Tuesday, accused the then News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks of covering up the real reason why her family were targeted.

Hames, a detective constable who appeared in uniform on Crimewatch and has since retired from the Metropolitan police, said the explanation Brooks offered was "pathetic" and questioned why the police did not do more to investigate the affair.

She and her then husband, senior police officer David Cook, were placed under surveillance by the paper after he was put in charge of a 2002 appeal for information regarding the murder of Daniel Morgan.

Morgan was found dead in the car park of a pub in south London in 1987. He had been hit in the head with an axe.

Private investigator Jonathan Rees, who allegedly earned £150,000 a year from the News of the World for supplying illegally obtained information, was cleared of Morgan's murder last March.

According to the witness statements Hames submitted to the inquiry, shortly after the new 2002 appeal, which was broadcast on Crimewatch, the police were told that one of the suspects intended to make life difficult for Cook, and the BBC1 programme received an email suggesting she was having an affair with a senior police detective.

The couple subsequently found themselves under surveillance by News International. Two vans parked outside their house were traced back to the News of the World causing them "great anxiety", said Hames.

Contacted by Met press chief Dick Fedorcio, Brooks said the paper was investigating suspicions that the couple were having an affair with each other, Hames said.

Hames told the inquiry this was "absolutely pathetic". "This was utterly nonsensical as we had by then been married for four years, had been together for 11 years and had two children," said Hames in her witness statement.

"Our marriage was common knowledge to the extent that we had even appeared together in Hello! magazine."

She said the News of the World had "never supplied a coherent explanation for why we were placed under surveillance".

In a meeting with her husband and his boss commander Andre Baker, she said Brooks "repeated the unconvincing explanation that the News of the World believed we were having an affair".

Hames said: "I believe that the real reason for the News of the World placing us under surveillance was that suspects in the Daniel Morgan murder inquiry were using their association with a powerful and well-resourced newspaper to try to intimidate us and so attempt to subvert the investigation.

"These events left me distressed, anxious and needing counselling and contributed to the breakdown of my marriage to David in 2010."

She added: "Given the impact of these events, I would like to know why the police did not investigate why we came to be placed under surveillance by a newspaper like this."

Hames told the inquiry that it was impossible not to conclude that there had been "collusion between people at the News of the World and people who were suspected of killing Daniel Morgan".

Asked by Lord Justice Leveson about the impact of the News of World surveillance on her personal life, Hames broke down in tears.

Leveson told her it was clearly very distressing and she did not have to continue.

But having recovered her composure, Hames told the court: "No one from any walk of life should have to put up with it. I would hate to think of anyone having to go through what we have had 10 years of."

Hames said private investigator Glenn Mulcaire's notebooks were later found to include her payroll number, her previous police accommodation, her address, telephone numbers, and details about her then husband.

Mulcaire worked for the News of the World for several years up to mid 2006 and was jailed for intercepting voicemail messages in January 2007.

She said the information showed the paper knew she was married to Cook and could not have been having an affair with him.

Hames, who was a presenter on Crimewatch between 1990 and 2006 and took early retirement from the police force in 2008, said this information could only have come from the Met's personnel file.

"When you learn that someone in your family, the police service, has sold you down the line it's very painful," she added.

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Bryant: phone hacking may be worst corporate corruption case for 250 yearsChris Bryant tells MPs Scotland Yard had been 'suborned' and effectively become a subsidiary of News International
Chris Bryant: 'We all need to know what journalists and their agents were up to.' Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian
Chris Bryant, the Labour MP, has claimed that in light of recent revelations the News International phone-hacking scandal could turn out to be the biggest case of corporate corruption in the UK for more than 250 years.

Bryant told a Westminster Hall private members' debate on media regulation on Tuesday that his "poor researcher" had counted 486 lies told to parliament by News International, the police and other organisations about phone hacking and related investigations.

The Labour MP, who received £30,000 in damages from NI in January to settle his News of the World phone-hacking claim, also said evidence given to the Leveson inquiry on Monday suggested that a "culture of mass corruption was intrinsic to the Sun's modus operandi".

He added that Monday's Leveson evidence about the Met's original investigation into News of the World phone hacking also showed that Scotland Yard had been "suborned" and effectively become a subsidiary of News International.

Bryant, who sponsored Tuesday's debate, said the phone-hacking affair still had some way to go before it reached its conclusion. "I suspect we've just crept into act 4, scene 2."

He claimed it was now known that senior figures at News International ordered the mass destruction of evidence. The cover-up went to the highest levels at News International, Bryant said, and this in the end may turn out to be the biggest crime of all.

He also said that directors of News Corporation, News International's parent company, had failed to take their responsibilities seriously enough.

"I suspect that in the end this will turn out to be the single largest corporate corruption case in this country for more than 250 years," Bryant added.

He said: "Why this is a problem for us as politicians is that every single element of the regulatory regime failed."

News Corp's directors, the Press Complaints Commission ("a toothless gaggle of compliant cronies"), the Met, and to some extent the law courts and parliament had all failed to bring those responsible to account, he added.

Bryant singled out Sir Christopher Meyer, who was PCC chairman when News of the World phone-hacking was first uncovered in 2006, for criticism. He said Meyer's chairmanship was "one of the most dismal records of public service" ever seen.

He added that the phone-hacking scandal had implications for the future of media regulation, and the biggest problem related to ownership.

Bryant said the UK needed a "robust and even scabrous press", but one that acted within the law and with common decency.

However, on media ownership, he added: "I think we need to be far more radical. I think we need a cap on how much you can own of the whole of the media world."

Bryant said he believed the language of the "fit and proper person" test for media ownership also needed reform.

He also questioned PCC chairman Lord Hunt's plan for reform of the regime of press self-regulation, saying he did not think the proposal for newspapers to sign binding contracts to adhere to the body's rulings for five years at a time would work.

Ed Vaizey, the culture minister, said recent revelations raised questions about the relationship between senior Met officers and News International and the various police investigations into alleged illegal activity should be allowed to run their course.

"We all need to know what journalists and their agents were up to… and learn lessons for the future," Vaizey added.

He said that was why David Cameron set up a judicial inquiry into media ethics and standards last summer, adding that he did not want to pre-empt Lord Justice Leveson's report on the future of press regulation.

However, Vaizey said it was no secret that the government would like to see a new system of self-regulation for the press that is independent, credible and has the power to impose "proper sanctions" against wrongdoers.

"We haven't ruled out statutory backing for a regulatory system," he added.

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The TV host wife of the detective who led the last inquiry into the murder of Welsh private detective Daniel Morgan has told the Leveson inquiry into newspaper standards about being targeted by News of the World.

Crimewatch presenter Jacqui Hames was spied on by the paper while her husband Detective Dave Cook led the 2002 review of the 1987 slaying of the private eye from Cwmbran.Today Ms Hames told the inquiry how an email was sent to Crimewatch falsely suggesting she was having an affair with a police officer.

At the time of the surveillance News International’s Rebekah Brooks told Met PR boss, Dick Fedorcio, Hames and Cook were being watched because they were having an affair.Hames said: “I cannot think of one reason why that would be, in any shape or form, a valid reason to (put) us under surveillance.

“We had been together for 11 years, we were a well known couple, it wouldn’t have taken much to completely refute the allegation.”

She called the excuse “absolutely pathetic” and claimed the real reason for surveillance was her husband’s involvement in the Morgancase.The presenter insisted News of the World wanted to derail the case.

One of the suspects at the centre of the investigation was Jonathan Rees – a former business partner of Morgan used by NOTW to get information from corrupt cops.

Hames told the inquiry as part of the surveillance her email was tampered with, and people tried to get financial information.

She claimed her husband was unhappy about the surveillance and “finally a meeting was agreed” between his commanding officer, DickFedorcio and Rebekah Brooks. This was “to try and elicit what was going on and what she was going to do about it.”She said: “I understand she (Brooks) just continued along the line she was investigating we were having some sort of affair and nothing else was heard.”

Police failed to tell Liberal Democrat deputy leader Simon Hughes that private investigator Glenn Mulcaire had his address, home phone number and personal details about his friends, the Leveson Inquiry heard today.

Scotland Yard detectives informed Hughes in October 2006 that they had uncovered evidence Mulcaire had hacked his mobile phone while working for the News of the World. The officers told him other politicians had also been targeted by the investigator and were not willing to go public and give evidence at a trial.

But it was only in May last year that police showed Hughes the extent of the information that Mulcaire held about him, the press standards inquiry heard.

Mulcaire and News of the World royal editor Clive Goodman were jailed in January 2007 after pleading guilty to intercepting voicemail messages left on royal aides' phones.Hughes strongly criticised Scotland Yard's failure to bring charges against anyone else despite evidence that "at least three" other senior News of the World journalists were involved in hacking his phone.

Referring to his original contact with police in 2006, he said: "What they didn't tell me was that Mr Mulcaire not only had that phone number but he had every other phone number, address, and other things.

"They did not tell me that he had, for example, the hotline in the office, which only a few people knew, my private phone number at home, which is private because four years before or something like it I had been a witness in a murder case and had had to have police protection."

The Lib Dem MP said Mulcaire also had the names, addresses and phone numbers of some of his friends. He said the investigator's notebooks showed that the News of the World had tried to stand up stories about a man and a woman linked to him "based on a salacious assumption".

"They were trying to establish relationships between me and these people, neither of which were what they would have liked them to have been," he said.

Police ignored 'long-standing and widespread criminality'

When Hughes asked detectives in 2006 whether other people were involved in phone hacking, he was told: "No, we are just proceeding against Mr Mulcaire."

He told the inquiry: "What I am very unhappy about - and it seems to me was a complete failure - was to explore whether it would be appropriate to bring charges against other defendants at the same time as part of the same inter-related set of activities."

The MP added in a statement: "I suspect that the police had shut down this investigation, much to the delight of News Group (publishers of the News of the World), and ignored evidence of long-standing and widespread criminality. I do not know of any good or persuasive reason why this should be, and it makes me extremely suspicious."

Hughes said his chances of becoming Lib Dem leader were hit when The Sun revealed in January 2006 that he had used a gay chatline. He recalled that a Sun journalist told him before the story ran that the paper had "come by" records of his telephone calls.

Before the revelations he had been favourite to replace Charles Kennedy as his party's leader, but afterwards his poll ratings dropped and he lost the leadership election.

Hughes told the hearing: "It would have been great to have won, but the consolation is probably running political parties in this country is an even more onerous burden, and it may be life has been easier without doing it, so I am fairly philosophical."

Hughes revealed to the inquiry that time is to be set aside in the next Parliamentary session for legislation on press regulation if necessary.

He said: "I have made it clear to the Deputy Prime Minister, my party leader and my colleague, that, in my view, in this parliamentary session, that will begin next spring - May 2013 - space should be reserved now in the forward planning of Parliament to deal with anything that requires legislation."

He added that any such legislation would have to be in place well before the next General Election, planned for 2015, and stressed: "Parliament will absolutely not bottle it and we mustn't run away from it."

'Unhealthy relationship' between press and politiciansHughes continued: "The Press must act in a framework of proper behaviour and the police must act and Parliament needs to be ready to act."

Asked by Robert Jay QC about the links between politicians and the Press, Hughes said that, even early on in his career, it was evident "there was a growing unhealthy relationship".He told the inquiry: "I understood how influential the tabloids became. I saw the desperate effort when I was in Parliament for party leaders to gain favour with the tabloids. I saw Tony Blair fly across the world to have summit meetings with the Murdoch family. I regarded it as increasingly unhealthy."

He said it was important to reach the newspapers which sold millions, as opposed to hundreds of thousands, of copies a day - in reality, the tabloids as opposed to the broadsheets.

Hughes added: "As every election grew nearer, the battle to get the most popular titles on your side would grow and it seemed to me there was a lot of compromising of principles to do that."

In some cases, he said. "parties temper their policies... to make them have maximum popular appeal" and added: "Sometimes they go in the wrong direction for populist reasons."http://bit.ly/xpyvfl

The 43-year-old former News International chief executive rode the retired horse for a year at her farm in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire before it was put out to pasture.

The loan, made in 2008 while Lord Blair was Met Commissioner, is likely to raise fresh questions about the close relationship between the police and the Murdoch media empire.Most of the Met's police horses are retired with The Horse Trust charity in Buckinghamshire.
Brooks, a keen rider, is married to racehorse trainer Charlie Brooks. A friend said: "Rebekah acted as a foster carer for the horse. Anybody can agree to do this with the Met if they have the land and facilities to pay for its upkeep."

The Leveson inquiry into press ethics has heard that the relationship between News International and the Met was "at best inappropriately close and at worst corrupt".

The inquiry also heard yesterday how the Met tipped off Brooks in 2006 about the original phone-hacking investigation at the News of the World, where she was editor from 2000 to 2003.
It has been claimed that Brooks, who was forced to resign from News International in the wake of the phone hacking scandal, was a horse-riding companion of Prime Minister David Cameron but she denies this.

Lord Blair said he was not aware of the gift.
Brooks's spokesman, David Wilson, from Bell Pottinger confirmed the deal took place. "Rebekah acted as a foster carer for the horse."

A Scotland Yard spokeswoman added: "When a police horse reaches the end of its working life, Mounted Branch officers find it a suitable retirement home. Whilst responsibility for feeding the animal and paying vet bills passes to the person entrusted with its care, the horse remains the property of the Metropolitan Police Service.

"Retired police horses are not sold on and can be returned to the care of the MPS at any time. In 2008 a retired horse was loaned to Rebekah Brooks. The horse was re-housed with a police officer in 2010."